Priest survived Peru quake hidden under church table

PISCO, Peru, Aug 18 (Reuters) Peruvian priest Luis Miroquesada saved himself by ducking under a table when a powerful earthquake devastated his church during a service. About 100 members of the congregation were not so lucky.

The church has become emblematic of the death and destruction in central coastal towns after Wednesday's magnitude 8.0 earthquake, which killed more than 500 people and left tens of thousands homeless.

''I was getting ready to leave and then the earthquake began,'' Miroquesada told Reuters, saying the first tremor struck as a funeral mass was coming to an end in the San Clemente church in the hard-hit colonial town of Pisco.

The lights went out and Miroquesada managed to scramble under a table in the sacristy as the building's roof and walls came down.

When Miroquesada emerged from beneath his table after the ground had stopped heaving, a dense cloud of damp, muddy dust was all that was left of San Clemente's main chapel.

''It happened just as the mass was ending, at the point when all the participants move to the front to greet the grieving relatives,'' said the white-haired priest.

''I would take a wild guess that about 100 people died in there because there were roughly 200 in the chapel,'' he said.

Rescue workers had pulled 70 bodies from the ruins of San Clemente by late on Friday. Even though they pulled a man alive from the same wreckage 24 hours after the quake, they were not hopeful about finding more survivors.

Roberto Rivera, a volunteer rescue worker, said the chances of anyone else being found alive were next to none, and that heavy machinery was already being used to excavate the site.

''We'll pray to God for a miracle and that we can find more people,'' he said.

REUTERS SYU PM2115